Buffalo, 2025: An Almost Perfect Summer.
By Betty Jean Grant
Betty Jean Grant
I know many of you who gathered at, near, or around the Merriweather Library, for the weekly Friday Night Live, feel as this writer does; that this dancing, talking, eating and hugging event was the best thing to happen on that street since the roll-out of the first Juneteenth parade and festival, way back in 1976.
Among the attendees were several of the original Juneteenth's organizers, including some of the children and grandchildren of those community-minded activists and community leaders, who were determined to find a way to have the black citizens of our country celebrate the Liberation of the formerly enslaved African Americans without them having to recognize or acknowledge the July 4th, bi-centennial celebration of the 1776's liberation of a nation of freedom loving patriots; who denied that same freedom to its black 'brothers and 'sisters'!
That impressive and quickly organized, first Jefferson Ave. festival was so successful it is still going strong and has grown to become the second largest Juneteenth Festival in the United States! I don't think any festival in the city was 'rained out' this Summer—Juneteenth’s kick- off, to the Friday Night Live events, to Thursday’s Freedom Park's Healing by the Water, events at Dr. MLK's Park— Buffalo was an entertainment mecca every weekend this summer. I have yet to mention the young people’s favorite event, The Hood Taste Of Buffalo.
The law enforcement authority says crime is down in Buffalo this summer. From all the love, hugs and smiles, our young men and women were bestowing on one another, at every event, I am not one bit surprised! This summer has shown many of us that it is not necessary to shoot someone just because they had or are having a bad day or they believed a person looked at them, sideways!
This beautiful, mainly hot and mostly dry, long stretch of perfect weather is coming to a close. What this summer has shown us, is, that we can get along, in crowds, big and small and that the black man we just nodded at, is not really the person whom the 'System' groomed him to become: an angry, amoral and brutal soul who shoots or slaughters the very persons who remind him of himself; his 'black brothers from other mothers'.
As I close out my thoughts and opinions, I am feeling a little differently, regarding our young black men. Now, I feel now that if we pour enough love, support and caring into their lives, they will make a change and start claiming or in some cases, re-claiming their places of authority and respect, in their own houses and in our communities.